


safe and sorted

by dinosaur



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Experimental Style, Kisses, Literally A Story About Kisses So All Kisses In The Book, Love at First Sight, Multi, Other, Polyamory, Relationship Study, Trans Characters, Travel, Vignette, Zarriall Week, like big hero six future verse but not relevant in any way lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-04 22:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12781164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinosaur/pseuds/dinosaur
Summary: It’s 2032, and Niall keeps a paper list of all their kisses.





	safe and sorted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [weatherzane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatherzane/gifts).



> this fic is bh6 fusion, just with the setting of san fransokyo bc i say so. 
> 
>    
> title from [moscow by autoheart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIRgN6xTjnA) and has some rly good vibes, ya feel?

 

 

 

The list starts somewhere after San Fransokyo.

Niall loops dates and cities and details of expressions and lip textures across the page but somehow can never manage to set a title to it.

Places I Kissed the Both Of You.

Moments I Found My Heart.

Dates We Fell In Love.

Times; we.

Everything seems inadequate. The list already exists.

Harry and Zayn know, of course. That’s the point, really.

(Sometimes, in more sentimental moments, Niall thinks about how they would title the list. Thinks she doesn’t know. Thinks the important part is that she’s still learning.)

 

\--

 

It goes like this.

Harry skips ring studded hands through composition visualizations in a quiet café on the corner of two busy skyways. There’s a delicate hope to the music, a proud potential in the catch of Harry’s body.

A duet.

Zayn whisper-sings a verse about earthquake hearts from the smooth edge of the barstool tipping forward with intent. Here’s a push of kindness, a rise of welcome in the soft sun of Zayn’s mouth.

A polaroid.

Niall cradles the old camera to her rainbow tinted chest so her shakes don’t transfer to the frame. A tidal wave is sweeping across the plains of her body, wracking her foundation.

A discovery.

She never believed in love at first sight, before.

 

\--

 

The way that Zayn writes code is this: unnecessary hands in the air, strong tongue quick over calls, parameters, 20 lines, a red M&M, a hum, 22 lines more, a quick glance to check on the stew, 12 lines, a kiss, for Niall watching eir, for Niall, just because.

Working From Home Kisses, Niall writes.

Harry pouts.

Coming Home From Work Kisses, Niall writes.

Zayn puts down the code to watch.

Niall’s journal coverage is effusive.

 

\--

 

PB&J Kisses.

Sticky, stucky, yummy.

“Told you the eggshell counter would show messes easier,” Niall shrugs.

“It’s great.” Harry’s breath is still coming hard.

 

\--

 

Niall works in city management. She travels. Every couple of weeks she gets to run maintenance on the crop of energy blimps above San Fransokyo. It’s the best because the solar systems here are intuitive, are curious and yearning towards the sky, easy to care for.

But also because Harry always finds her afterwards, color coded calendar around his wrist and a compass in his heart.

Two quick kisses, like opening chords.

One slower one, like a rising violin.

His smile, like _hello, love._

Welcome back home.

 

\--

 

Angry kisses. Kisses meant for long work days and missed schedules and people, god _people_.

Uncomfortable and teeth filled like a children’s book monster, all wobbly lines and simple, unhappy motivation.

Niall pushes on the lines of them.

“Probably a little inappropriate to kiss people that make me mad, though,” Zayn says, hoarse, chin digging into Niall’s arm.

Niall half shrugs into the couch cushions. “You kiss Harry, don’t you.”

And they laugh.

 

\--

 

Sorry kisses. Sorry for misplaced kisses.

 

\--

 

Closed mouth early morning kisses to the corner of Niall’s mouth like a whisper of snowflakes heralding fresh snow, minty from the early run rise of Harry’s disgusting health habits and Niall sighs into it like melting, nosing into the side of Zayn’s neck, seeking shelter under her soft murmurings, ripples in the wake of rain, to Harry, to the side of Niall’s hair, to the bright, ready morning and ey kisses Harry back with a soft sound like an icicle dipped into warmth.

This is what they call hibernation.

 

\--

 

A date, on a special date.

Zayn treats them to sushi in Osaka.

Salmon melts on Niall’s tongue. She closes her eyes for the cucumber, opens them for the roe. The tastes layer. Harry’s arm pressed to hers, Zayn’s ankle under hers. Under her scarf, her high collar, her necklace, are matching kisses from them.

She is warm.

After, Harry wants daifuku, wants to go back to the hotel, wants to kiss them both until they taste just of themselves.

It takes a long while.

Niall stretches it as far as she can.

Small kisses, kisses to noses and cheeks and haphazard eyebrows and shoulders and fingers. Big kisses, kisses to collars and hips and precise lips and thighs and wrists.

Niall is hazy with sake and hope.

She catalogs the kisses later with a simple:

One.

 

\--

 

Distracted kisses. Absent, not not here, but there, there the world where everything is easy and home is kissing like it’s habit.

She flushes every time.

 

\--

 

Niall falls into the water gardens in Charlotte.

Lips, shaky with laughter.

Lips, cold with clumsy.

Lips, pursed with impatience.

 

\--

 

Airport kisses.

The carpet is splotchy and ugly-comforting. A trio: scuffed boots, scuffed booties, scuffed heelys.

Niall keeps her eyes turned away because crying in airports is too depressing and she wants to remember the look on Harry and Zayn’s faces as the one when the powdered sugar bag this morning landed on a knife and their morning landed in a winter wonderland.

She wants to remember this oasis.

Their lips are soft, gentle.

She feels them under her coffee, her gum, her tongue.

 

\--

 

“We should get a dog,” Harry says, over the scrabble board.

 _P A S S_ Niall spells.

 _P L E A S E_ Zayn spells, eyes Disney bright.

 _A R D E N T_ Harry connects their words.

“That’s me done, by the way,” Harry smiles, teeth Cheshire wide.

He’s neatly writing his final score on the sheet. It’s got one more digit than either Niall or Zayn.

“I hate this game, by the way,” Niall smiles back and flips the digital board over Harry’s lap. He squawks satisfyingly.

Zayn is smiling, laying back with M&M’s in hand.

Even hours later, ey tastes like blue.

Harry tastes like petulance.

 

\--

 

Partner On A Work Call For 6 Hours Kisses.

 

\--

 

Ice skating; no kisses.

“Slippery sports are not made for people with prosthetics,” Niall clings to the rink wall.

Harry sits on his ass beside her and looks like a patient Jack Frost.

Low on her back, a warm hand. Zayn, a gentle pressure behind it.

“You’re alright, babe,” ey whispers, “We gotcha.”

“Will you have me if I fall?”

High on her temple, chapped lips. Zayn, an easy reassurance behind it.

Harry answers, “Already do, Niall-bee.”

 

\--

 

When You’ve Just Fought With One Partner, But The Other Partner Sided With You

“If he starts another conversation with that fucking, _‘Well_ ,’ I’m gonna -”

“I know.”

Sad, soft, sympathetic.

 

\--

 

Make-up sex kisses; hard to keep track of.

In front of the mirror, Niall catalogs.

Back of neck, definitely Zayn.

Bottom of thigh, just before prosthetic, maybe Harry.

Wrist, chin, both.

Collar, probably Zayn.

Niall squirms writing it down, clenches her thighs together. They watch her.

Second rounds aren’t easier to keep track of.

 

\--

 

Halfway to another date, Niall treats them.

An hour before sunrise, one hand on the wheel, one on Harry’s thigh. Rolling rumbles from the blanket-bundle of Zayn in the back.

Picnic blanket checkers next to the flush of Harry’s cheeks.

Niall in between his legs, then Zayn. Pressed along his side, lips to his jet fuel pulse. The taste of desperation, desire.

Watching the sun rise in Zayn’s eyes. Kissing; the breath from eir lungs.

The solar ships sparking along the skyline.

Spring.

 

\--

 

On the skytrain to Old Town San Diego. A light collection. Two on her cheeks, 5 on her lips, one on her hand.

Later, none, wandering through the virtual zoo, nose to nose with a giraffe, as Zayn loses eirself in a gaggle of wolves, head close with a coding vet.

She finds Harry at the entrance, talking to his manager, poking at some fries.

He shakes his head when he looks up at her, turns half-away.

On the skytrain home, she closes her notebook.

 

\--

 

Distance between planetary bodies is measured not in space, but in travel, in light.

Glancing through the curtain of the sky; an explosion! of the past, a reflection: not of will be | of _was_. Not hope | reality.

When time stretches into the seashell of night; pinprick stars to the tips of fingers, pulled away to press against lips, dripping red,blue,red.

Harry and Zayn kiss away the bruises, but Niall wakes up and doesn’t remember where she keeps getting them.

 

\--

 

May 29th: Harry, Zayn, fight, four shouts and a misplaced frustration.

May 18th: Zayn, record deal.

May 7th: Harry, kisses, promises, to both of their ring fingers.

 

\--

 

“I would tell you if I wasn’t happy,” Niall says, remembers saying.

Quiet, Niall remembers, too.

Eventually,

“I would tell you if I knew what to say.” Zayn’s eyes, closed.

Ah.

“I don’t think,” pause, “Harry knows the difference.”

“No,” A Kiss, Pointed, Precise, Tired. “He doesn’t.”

Niall remembers sighing, as well.

 

\--

 

I should have said, _Okay,_ Niall writes later.

I should have said, _How do we make sure he does?_

I should have kissed both of them.

Just once more.

\--

 

I should have said, _I don’t understand why you didn’t tell us, all you had to do was say something, just act like I would care about you, why don’t you share, why do you wander away, where is it in your head that I can’t follow. Harry doesn’t get this, I know, I know, - but I didn’t know you wanted to do this and I would have supported you, but you didn’t let me know I needed to. Or maybe. Maybe you did, but I was too busy listening to something else to hear, too busy with the art of us, to see the performance of you. But if you’d - If I’d, please, Zayn, I’m not done writing down last week yet._

 

\--

 

Hindsight, Niall writes, 4 months later.

 

\--

 

4 months is fast, really.

Niall works. She doesn’t have time for the book right now.

(And Harry and Zayn don’t have time for her, for them, anyway.)

((Space is measured in time.))

 

\--

 

(((But,but,

There’s a section of Nob Hill that Niall always goes to admire when she is feeling wobbly.

Here, the buildings are aligned with the earth, impossible slants of bracket systems that crescendo in soft palettes from solar panels to squishy LED sidewalk.

A dog walks itself past her.

Overhead, the sky choruses with trains and laughs and blinking blimps.

She kissed Harry here once, after climbing up. Shins splitting, lips dry. Harry placed his too big hand against her cheek and left it there a long time.

Zayn asked them, asked them out, out here. Found them intertwined and wrapped them around eir wrist and taught them how to find a heartline, a city skyline over hills.

But, that was a long time ago.)))

 

\--

 

A Series Of Sad Decisions:

Ellie.

Olly.

Wiz.

Bressie.

Brez pushes her gently into a chair afterwards, tells her no, taps her chin with a fist so she knows they’re alright.

She leans her head back against the wall and closes her eyes to afterimages of virtual ping pong.

Tired.

\--

 

Finchy kisses her cheek happily at the press coverage of the new solar blimp launch.

It’s okay, but Niall doesn’t have to laugh and reach up to smear away off-shade foundation, so.

So, it’s not so okay.

 

\--

 

She takes up chewing on her cuticles again.

It doesn’t feel like her fingers felt in between Zayn’s lips, but. What does anymore.

 

\--

 

The things with there being three of them, is that it’s twice the amount of kisses, twice the places that Niall has to see ghosts in, twice the dates Niall carefully color blocks her continuing life over.

It was all at once the best thing, and the most hollow.

 

\--

 

Zayn calls at 4:14 PST on a Tuesday. Niall gets taco juice on her phone answering without looking.

“Hey,” Zayn says.

Like ey can just say that.

Niall doesn’t say anything.

Zayn talks about something Niall can’t hear over the ringing in her ears. A skytrain swirls past and scoops up even that sound.

After it clears, Niall feels herself ask, “Have you called Harry?”

Because, because that’s the real question. That’s the real work. Niall’s the easy one. Niall’s the lover that doesn’t fall out of love. Niall’s the one who’s not even mad. Niall just _wants_ -

She takes a deep breath.

 _Don’t forget, I’m just a girl,_ Niall hears Harry’s voice, _standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her._

He’s always put his hand to her chin, thumb on her lip, whispering it. Saying it _to her_ , instead.

“I.” Zayn says, quiet.

“Need to,” Niall finishes.

 

\--

 

Trees, Niall thinks, made hollow become homes for others.

For those seeking shelter.

 

\--

 

Niall doesn’t want to have a Before and After. There’s no delineation of her love.

At her kitchen table, notebook waiting uncovered on her bedstand, she faces them.

“I’m not writing that and I won’t  - ” She takes a deep breath, “We don’t have to rope off the past to live accountable to it. I won’t live like we’ve cut ourselves into then and now.”

From the corner of her eye, she can see Zayn mouthing the words, eir lips curving. Harry is still fiddling with the loose strings on his pants.

“It did happen,” Harry mumbles.

“It did.”

“Still happening,” Zayn says, low and watching Harry.

Harry’s jaw tenses.

Niall wants to kiss it. Wants to kiss Zayn’s tone.

A stretched moment later, Harry finally looks up, “I’m not sure how to stop it.”

“If you’re willing,” Niall takes a breath, takes an scoot closer, “I think we have time to try to learn.”

(Space is measured in time.)

 

\--

 

1, 2, 5.

Quick, quick, slow.

“Here.”

“Yeah -”

“Ah,” inhale, “hello.”

 

\--

 

It goes like this.

Harry mumbles nothings with hands tangled in the medium count compromise sheets, hair askew. His band beeps with a too-sleepy alarm.

A life.

Zayn curls into the cold under the pillows, lips still sparkly with their night out. Across the palette of eir arms, echoes the alarm in warm strokes of green.

A hope.

Niall sits up against the wall adjusted to the curve of her spine, leg off and nerves quiet. The weathered notebook waits patiently for the start of their morning.

A list they are building together.

She thinks this is how writing happens, nonlinear because the true ending is never clear until after the telling of it.

A not end.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr post for this fic [[here]](http://wepush.tumblr.com/post/167720769530/safe-and-sorted-dinosaur-for-notafraidof-in). thanks for reading! comments and critiques are much good beans <3


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